The Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2) finally released its second annual report a few weeks ago, and the findings are horrifying. For many of us, it confirmed — and offered numerical data for — the alarms teachers in the trenches had been sounding for years. YEARS.
EDCOM members are doing important work, and I pray for their success. But the numbers they uncovered in two years tell a story of long-term neglect, incompetence, and, likely, corruption within the system.
What was the government expecting out of schools without electricity or proper leadership? Is there any motivation technique that will help a child who is hungry or does not feel safe at home? Teachers are not miracle workers — although we really try. Some people may have been surprised by the PISA results; many teachers were not.
Obviously, those problems must take priority. But, at some point, they are going to need to talk about what to do in the classroom. That is what I’d like to focus on here, looking forward to the year ahead.
EDCOM 2 says, “Fixing the foundations is not a tagline but a call to action.” Okay, but to what end? What is the goal we are working towards? I know EDCOM 2 was convened in light of the recent dismal PISA results, but is the goal merely to raise our performance in international assessments?
Here is the fundamental question: How does EDCOM 2 define “well-educated”? Or, alternatively, “What should the ideal graduate of five or 10 years from now be like?” Our children seem barely prepared for life in 2010. Can you imagine how ill-prepared they are for 2030?
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What are we educating for? Are we merely educating to produce a robust workforce for society, or educating for human flourishing? If it is the former, there are simple, formulaic solutions that may be enacted; if it is the latter, a greater challenge looms ahead. The answers to those questions will dictate how the committee proceeds from here.
The mass education systems that have gone mostly unchanged for over a century were designed in a time when efficiency, standardization, and unquestioning obedience were the values emphasized by a factory-driven economy. Those contexts are long gone.
Moving forward, there may be assumptions that need to be questioned. Long-time, deeply-held beliefs about education that are overdue to be challenged:
- Is grouping kids by age the only way to go?
- Should we continue to insist on a standardized schedule and sequence of skills and topics for all children to follow?
- Is it high time to acknowledge the messiness and unpredictability of learning, as well as the individual differences in interests and personal contexts that influence pace?
- Isn’t it time to admit that the industrial contexts in which many of our traditional practices were first conceived no longer apply to a generation that will likely grow up into a world that, for better or worse, will be increasingly dependent on and dominated by Al?
Perhaps, it’s time to heed the words of John Dewey when he wrote, “If we teach today’s children as we taught yesterday, we rob them of tomorrow.”
It is time to allow our students to shine where they best shine. We must abandon a design of education that puts a premium on everyone becoming either academic intellectuals or the rank and file of traditional corporate work. We must design a system that supports, as early as possible, our students flourishing as future academics, but also humans thriving as artists, athletes, chefs, farmers, fishermen, entrepreneurs, public servants, etc.
Let us not condemn them to a life as faceless cogs of the capitalist machine. Let children find their passions, their advocacies, their calling. Not everyone is going to be a doctor, lawyer, engineer, academic, or corporate slave. We need to stop designing a system that assumes that is what everyone will be until they prove incapable or uninterested, and instead encourage individual interests and passion.
I do have a few ideas for their consideration:
- Flexible curricula combined with greater agency for students to design and make decisions about their own education.
- Assessments focused on documenting progression rather than measurements and ratings.
- Primary education emphasizing physical play, reading for pleasure, and critical problem solving in the form of games and puzzles.
- Comprehensive citizenship education focused on strengthening values of democracy — including voter education, understanding government functions and the systems of checks and balances, understanding current issues in light of history, developing awareness of individual and universal rights, recognizing the signs of fascism, identifying propaganda, the ability to have difficult conversations, and recognizing the importance of voices of dissent.
I am aware these conversations mean nothing unless our issues with infrastructure, teaching personnel, and children’s well-being are addressed. I defer to the experts working in EDCOM 2 and pray for wisdom on their part. But I implore them to look beyond aiming to merely do things better, and consider instead how we might do better things.
EDCOM 2 aims to fix the foundations. But its reports suggest the problems extend beyond the foundations: the ceilings are damaged, the walls rotten, and the floors cracked. It’s time to tear down the entire monolith and build a new ecosystem from the ground up that better supports thriving human life. – Rappler.com
The author is currently a tutor/trainer at StemLab Inc. in BGC, Taguig. He previously taught at UP Manila and FEU Institute of Technology. His views on education are largely influenced by Alfie Kohn, John Holt, and Ken Robinson. He covers this and other topics on the Meaningful Education Alliance channels (@medalorgph) on YouTube, IG, and Tiktok.